Monday, June 12, 2017

Be good to your body and brain

Several months ago the AARP Bulletin featured a cover story with 50 ways to live longer. It was filled with suggestions such as cutting back on pain pills, getting sufficient sleep each night, reducing sugar intake, etc.

One of the suggestions jumped out at me. It followed the suggestion to drive less, and it was "Better yet walk." Reminding us that a great prescription for longer life is to exercise, the article said that doctors are actually prescribing walks instead of medication. Wow, what a great idea! There are so many benefits to walking—particularly now when in most parts of the country, weather is lovely and permits walks in nature. We get the health benefits of movement, and we get to soak up the beauty of nature as well.

Claude Bouchard, director of the human genomics laboratory at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana said, "There is no pill that comes close to what exercise can do." It benefits our brain, heart, skin, mood and metabolism. And that's good self-care.

I've heard it said that sitting is the new smoking. And many of us sit at computers, sit in a workplace, sit in cars, and sit some more! So I'm talking to myself here—and to you, too: Let's be good to our brains, hearts, skin, moods and metabolism and fit in some walking (or other exercise) today! Your body and brain will thank you.